Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1887-12-21
EARLY ENGLISH BOOKS.
Judge macArthur's Paper Before the
AI.thropOlOgical Society Last Even.
ing.

ALthr0POlOgtcol society Last Even.
ing.
Judge Arthur Macarthur read an interesting
paper before the Anthropoogical Society, at It's
one hundred and twenty ninth meeting, held last
evening in the hall OF the Cosmos Club his subject
being 'The First Books Written in the English
Language, and Their Influence Upon That Ian
guage." He said that the early works of the lam
guage were intrtnsically valueless, containing
nothing OF historical or ictional interest that
would hold the mind for q moment, even II the
modern mind could come to a comprehension Of
them; but their value lies In the evidences which
they AFFORD OF the growth and development OF the
tongue and are Indicative particularly OF the pro-
cess OF simplitcatton which the language has un-
dergone. In the Brut OF Layamon, which Is &C
credited to TO be the
FIRST ENGLISH BOOK,
are to be found, he said, the elementary forms of
English and the earliest portions Of its vocabulary
The author, q priest, had In his mind the idea Of
telling Of the noble deeds OF Englishmen, and set
He Travelled all over the island, searching and
gathering, notwithstanding the perilous condition
were In revolt. Among the works he found was
one by Jeoffrey OF Monmouth, q WEIGH priest. This
was in twelve books, and was poetic composition
theme OF the heroism OF English warriors and OF the
kings previous TO the Saxon conquest prevalent,
% TSe R Tns IRON Hns n nG Of
up OF fables woven into sort OF epic poem. In It
the nouns, pronouns and adJectives bear an un-
the use Of shall, win, would aud should, and the
participial ending 'Ing" with the Saxon re"
added; he also brought into use the pronoun his
and the final as" to indicate possession, in place Of
the genative case. In place OF the innumerable
senseess Saxon infections used to denote the case
OF noun he introduced the articles ga" and "the, "
thus simplifying the grammatical construction Of
the language beyond conception.
But with all the Efforts Of Layamon toward
every writer twisted his words to suit himself;
every man became his own spelling book. Laya.
mon failed to enrich the language by the introduc
ton OF foreign words, for only two or three Latin
words being used In hundreds OF lines.
THE ANCIENT RULE.
Fifteen years afterward there appeared book
entitled "The Ancient Rule" which is the oldest
sample Of English prose writing yet discovered as
the Brut is the earliest OF English poetry. 1t is
otherwise unimportant excepting as IL attests the
period OF the history Of the language. To Illus
trate the license which each writer assumed, the
author OF this book takes occasion to double the
conSonantS whenever there appears q chance
For example the spelling "tthatt" Is often met
with. Then followed after "The Ancient Rule" the
"Ormuium," the "Owl and the Nightingale" and
the "Genesis and Exodus" In all Of which each
writer used the words and forms with which he
was most familiar.
EFFECT ON THE LANGUAGE.
But 1t is noteworthy, Judge Macarthur said, that
many OF the peculiarties or these works still mark
some portions of the language. The same diffi-
dence about the adaptation OF foreign terms is
shown In the Ormulum, In which out OF q, 900
there are not over sixty foreign words used The
nate from the tongue the useless machinery which
marked the old Anglo-Saxon, in the way OF infiec-
tional end1ngs-
AT the close OF the reading of the paper President
Powell said that all language begins with dialects
and as time goes on the number of languages
grows smaller. II isdfncult TO appreciate the vast
change and improvement wrought in language
by dropping the infections An infected language
bears TO an unaffected about the same relation
which the old Roman system of numbers bears to
the Arabic. II we were forced to calculate by the
old forms all mathematics would die, IL would be-
come too cumbersome, and just 80 If we should
have to use the old forms OF language all modern
science would wither and perish